In the less than 10 minutes it took to announce the nominees, MacFarlane managed to insult his co-presenter, belittle the achievements of several nominees, and make a Hitler joke...

MacFarlane presumably meant this to be comedic, and the lines may have been scripted. (It was hard to tell.) But MacFarlane seemed incapable of making quips that weren’t at the expense of the honorees or others in the room. After reading the Best Director candidates, he cracked, “These are 5 people who are the very best at sitting in a chair and watching other people make a movie.” After the nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay: “These are adapted screenplays, so that means that the writers basically copied stuff from Microsoft Word and pasted it into Final Draft.” Then when he announced that Amour was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, he explained that it was a German and Austrian co-production. “The last time Austria and Germany got together and co-produced something,” he interjected, “it was Hitler.” (“But this is much better,” Stone chimed in.)

Edgy and biting can work at an awards show, but these one-liners were neither. When Ricky Gervais caused a stir at the Golden Globes, he mostly took aim at the awards show’s self-indulgent tone and aired a bit of Hollywood’s dirty laundry. MacFarlane’s targets were the actual honorees—and his lines lacked satirical bite because there was no real truth in them.

Ouch. I still think MacFarlane can pull off the Oscars but it sounds like he may have stumbled early on, thinking people wanted "Family Guy at the Academy."

Really, when you hire Seth MacFarlane to do ANYTHING you can't complain about what happens as a result. Doing this is asking for trouble, sort of like that time when the GOP tasked Stephen Colbert with M.C. some GOP event, apparently unaware of the "joke" that Colbert played the ultra-conservative on his show and was really a liberal.

Doing this is asking for trouble, sort of like that time when the GOP tasked Stephen Colbert with M.C. some GOP event, apparently unaware of the "joke" that Colbert played the ultra-conservative on his show and was really a liberal.

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That's not what happened. It wasn't a GOP event. It was a press association event to which Bush was invited.

Really, when you hire Seth MacFarlane to do ANYTHING you can't complain about what happens as a result.

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When you hire anyone to do anything you have a right to complain if their work isn't the quality of what you paid for.

While I'm sure hiring SM was yet another attempt to 'appeal to younger viewers,' I suspect they producers hired him in large part due to his general wit and 'song and dance' /toastmaster personna. If MacFarlane can't tailor his act to the audience or the event that would would seem to be more a dig on his abilities than on the producers.

Listen, I've got no love for Hollywood and agree a lot of them need to be taken down a peg, but isn't belittling the honorees at an awards show a little like agreeing to give the toast at a wedding and then insulting the bride and groom? Or mocking religion while DJing a bar mitzvah?

Doing this is asking for trouble, sort of like that time when the GOP tasked Stephen Colbert with M.C. some GOP event, apparently unaware of the "joke" that Colbert played the ultra-conservative on his show and was really a liberal.

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That's not what happened. It wasn't a GOP event. It was a press association event to which Bush was invited.

Yeah, I forgot the context of the event. Still, they brought Stephen Colbert to their event seemingly unaware of the "joke" and "character" he plays. Lord knows what they were thinking or why they thought he'd use the event as anything other than a chance to do his shtick to pick on the administration.

Really, when you hire Seth MacFarlane to do ANYTHING you can't complain about what happens as a result.

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When you hire anyone to do anything you have a right to complain if their work isn't the quality of what you paid for.

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But you don't have the right to complain when the work they do is EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE KNOWN FOR! I mean, would you task Andrew Dice Clay for your event and NOT expect him to cuss like sailor?

Listen, I've got no love for Hollywood and agree a lot of them need to be taken down a peg, but isn't belittling the honorees at an awards show a little like agreeing to give the toast at a wedding and then insulting the bride and groom? Or mocking religion while DJing a bar mitzvah?

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It was gentle jabbing and I bet most of them found it to be pretty funny.

Listen, I've got no love for Hollywood and agree a lot of them need to be taken down a peg, but isn't belittling the honorees at an awards show a little like agreeing to give the toast at a wedding and then insulting the bride and groom? Or mocking religion while DJing a bar mitzvah?

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Just about every decent wedding toast I've ever heard made fun of at least one of the newlyweds.